Invitation to Anthropology, Fourth Edition PDF

INVITATION TO ANTHROPOLOGY, Fourth Edition n Luke Eric Lassiter 0;;'01i ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD Lanham. Boulder. New York. Toronto. Plymouth, UK B Anthropology and Culture Much has happened in American anthropology since Boas, his students, and his contemporari...

INVITATION TO ANTHROPOLOGY, Fourth Edition n Luke Eric Lassiter 0;;'01i ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD Lanham. Boulder. New York. Toronto. Plymouth, UK B Anthropology and Culture Much has happened in American anthropology since Boas, his students, and his contemporaries established anthropology as a professional discipline in its own right. Suffice it to say that, as you might expect, human biology and culture became the primary concern of modern anthropology in the years following World War II-and it continues to be the primary focus today. An­ thropology is now a'discipline concerned mostly with understanding human beings through a careful and comparative study of biological differences and similarities as well as cultural differences and similarities. Anthropologists are today broadly concerned with these differences and similarities-both past and present-on local and international scales. ANTHROPOLOGY Biological Anthropology Cultural Anthropology (human biology) (culture) Archaeology lingUistic Anthropology (material culture) (language) The four major subfields of anthropology. 35 36 CHAPTER 2 ANTHROPOLOGY AND CULTURE 37 As modern anthropology flourished in the twentieth century, it began to develop into four main subdisciplines: biological or physical anthropology, archaeology, linguistic anthropology, and cultural anthropology. Although these sub fields are split into sub-subfields and sub-sub-subfields, each of these areas today focus on a particular component of the human experience. Biological or physical anthropology focuses on human biology, archa,eology centers on human technology and material culture, linguistic anthropology concentrates on language, and cultural anthropology addresses culture. Al-. though I will focus primarily on culture throughout this book, I'd like to look briefly at the way its study fits within the overall discipline of anthropology. FROM BIOLOGY TO CULTURE TO APPLICATION: ON THE SUBFIELDS OF ANTHROPOLOGY Let's start with physical or biological anthropology. This field is concerned pri­ marily with human biology. But biological anthropologists conceptualize hu­ man biology in very broad terms. From the social problem of race to the actual biological complexity of populations, from disease to health, from heredity to Language involves much more than the spoken word. We use a variety of symbols­ sounds, gestures, and body language, for example-to impart meaning when we genetics, from bone structure to cell structure-biological anthropology does communicate with others. Many linguistic anthropologists thus seek to understand many different things. A unifying concept in biological anthropology, however, language as a process of communication inextricably bound to social contexts. is biological change, or evolution. Through this lens, biological anthropologists Photo by Danny Gawlowski. seek to understand biological changes over the long and short terms. Biological villages to large cities, from weapons of war to arts and crafts, from the devel­ anthropologists take up as subjects the evolution of the human species as well opment of agriculture to the fall of civilizations, from human exploitation of as the evolution of the latest influenza virus. Moreover, they seek to understand the environment to human adaptation to the environment-archaeologists human biological variation within the larger framework of the biological varia­ use artifacts situated in their larger social context to uncover the secrets of tion found among all animals. Just where humans fit in the overall scheme of human SOCiety in both the past and the present. biological evolution remains an important question for deciphering how we are Linguistic anthropology focuses exclusively on language because of its both similar to and different from other animals (like our closest living rela­ central role in defining who we are as humans. In a general sense, we depend tives, chimpanzees and gorillas). on language like no other animal to survive. And as we use it to communicate Archaeology shares many of its research methods with biological anthro­ complex ideas and concepts, language is, to be sure, at the very heart of cul­ pology (such as the archaeological dig) but diverges from the study of human ture. As such, it is a rich source for expressing the diversity of human experi­ biology to focus on human technology or material culture (i.e., materials that ence. In a more particular sense, the whole range of an individual society's human beings purposefully create either as tools to adapt to their environ­ collective experience is contained in language. The word for love in English, ments or as meaningful expressions of their experience). To put it simply, for example, is translated as "respect" in another language. Knowing this the key concept in archaeology is the artifact, an object created by humans. helps linguistic anthropologists understand that not everyone sees the world But the pOint is not about collecting artifacts, like a treasure hunter might do. in the same way, and our diversity of languages reflects and, many linguists Archaeologists place these artifacts within larger social contexts to infer and say, shapes our uniqueness. understand human behavior. Thus, from religion to economics, from small 38 CHAPTER 2 ANTHROPOLOGY AND CULTURE 39 The idea that language not only reflects but can also shape how we think feel of one town different from another is culture; what makes my family differ­ and how we act-sometimes called the Sapir- Wharf hypothesis-is an impor­ ent from yours is culture. In the same sense we all share similarities in culture,. tant concept for understanding differences across cultural groups. Ideas about like the questions surrounding the meanings of birth, marriage, inheritance, or "love" or "respect"-to continue with the same example-may index similar death. This is the stuff of cultural anthropology. human feelings, but their historical use and development within particular cul­ From gender roles to the cultural construction of race, from music to the tural contexts help linguist anthropologists understand how certain {eelings are social construction of violence, from politics to economics, from law to the thought about and acted upon differently. Very interesting stuff indeed. concept of freedom-cultural anthropologists study culture to understand Because language can mean both spoken and nonspoken discourse, a the powerful role it has in our lives. central concept in linguistics is communication: in anthropological terms,. While biolOgical anthropology, archaeology, and linguistic and cultural communication is the use of arbitrary symbols to impart meaning. This anthropology now constitute the four so-called subfields, some anthropolo­ means that certain sounds or gestures have no inherent meaning in and of gists identify a fifth subfield of anthropology called applied anthropology­ themselves: we assign meaning to them and through them impart meaning to the application of anthropology to human problems. Unlike the other others. For example, a belch at the dinner table is considered a rude gesture subfields, applied anthropology is more of a perspective, an approach that is among polite company in the United States; apparently, it communicates a applied in all areas of anthropology, from biological anthropology and ar­ compliment in some other countries. Or consider how a slight nod of the head chaeology to linguistic and cultural anthropology. From forensic anthropolo­ may mean yes among most Americans; the same gesture might be meaning­ gists (who apply biological anthropology to solve, for example, murder cases) less among non-English speakers who use other gestures to communicate an to cultural resource-management archaeologists (who apply archaeological affirmative response nonverbally. It's not the gesture of nodding or the sound research to federal and state mandates to preserve the archaeological and of belching itself but rather the meaning behind the gesture or sound. Thus, historical record' for the future) to medical anthropologists (who apply bio­ from sounds and gestures to the composition of language families, from the logical, lingUistic, and cultural anthropology to address health problems), the history of words to their ongoing evolution, from the different ways men and work of anthropology in the public realm is indeed multifaceted. women communicate to how power structures are transmitted through spo­ ken language, linguistic anthropologists seek to understand the intricacies of J;J\1";';J.Ji'.J,.I1";I#;J·W'··li(.)~11 human communication within larger social contexts (both past and present). Finally, let's turn to cultural anthropology. Cultural anthropology-often called sociocultural anthropology-shares with anthropological linguistics a A well-established appllcation of anthropological knowledge t'o focus on human communication. But its central, driving concept, culture, is human ·problems is forensic anthropology, in which anthropolo­ much broader in scope. While we may popularly think of culture as synony­ gists may apply.anthropological knowledge to legal cases that mous with groups or the values and attitudes of those groups, in an anthropo­ involve the identification of humcm remains. Much of what we logical sense, culture is a shared and negotiated system of meaning informed know abou.t identifying hUman remai~s has been the direct result by knowledge that people learn and put into practice by interpreting experience of research ,carried out at.so-c~lIed body farms, places where hu­ and generating behavior.l This is a mouthful-and based on several different man decompOSition is studied and documented. One-of the most widely known lo~~tions is.the Forensic Anthropology Center at anthropological definitions and understandings of culture (see note 1 at the the UniversitY, of Tennessee, Knoxville. You can learn more about end of the chapter)-but don't worry about apprehending exactly what I mean the canter and its various and ongoing studies of human decom­ by this just yet. I will go into more depth later. For now, let's say simply that position atfac.utk.edu. culture is the lens through which we all view the world; at the same time, culture is that which produces the human differences found in our world. What makes American society different from, say, French society is culture; what makes the lot:r:rttt llj.. 40 CHAPTER 2 ANTHROPOLOGY AND CULTURE 41 HOLISM AND COMPARATIVISM While holism is the philosophical construct that underlies anthropology, a How do anthropologists make sense of all of this varied information about broadly based approach called comparativism makes the holistic perspective humans? Doesn't a focus limited only to biology or culture leave us with an possible. Comparativism is, simply, the search for similarities and differences incomplete picture of the human experience in all of its complexities? Indeed, between and among human beings in all of their biological and cultural could Boas have formulated his critique of social evolution and race without complexities. On some levels, we do this all the time. We regularly compare understanding humans in both biological and cultural terms? ~ ourselves with others, with other religions, or with other ways of life; conse­ To be sure, anthropology is an extremely broad and far-reaching discipline. quently, we define for ourselves how we are similar and different from others. But two main concepts organize the sub fields into a larger whole: holism and But in anthropology, comparativism is the use of diverse information from comparativism. First, holism. Holism is a perspective that emphasizes the all the subfields (both biologically and culturally based) from many different whole rather than just the parts. In general, the holistic perspective-as it is populations to make generalizations about the complexity of human beings. also called-pushes an understanding of the big picture that can often be lost Thus, in anthropology, to "compare" is to understand the general trends that by focusing solely on details. Thus, in anthropology, holism encourages us to make human life what it is, from evolution to language to society. Without understand humans as both biological and cultural beings, as living in both comparison, we become lost in the details. And, in the end, comparativism is the past and the present. Elucidating the relationships in all that is human is the method that makes holism possible. 2 especially important to holism. Anthropology, the subfields, applied anthropology, holism, comparativ­ Holism, of course, is inherent to anthropology. But, as a driving concept ism-I know this is a lot to think about. But what does it all mean? These or­ behind both the theory and practice of the field, holism reminds us that re­ ganizing concepts are important because they constitute the conceptual tools gardless of whether we are biological, archaeological, linguistic, or cultural that anthropologists use to critique simplistic notions of human diversity-a anthropologists, anthropology is ultimately concerned with understanding critique begun by those like Boas and carried out by succeeding generations the human condition in all its complexities. As such, anthropologists realize of anthropologists. Anthropology, the sub fields, applied anthropology, ho­ that there are a number of ways to understand these human complexities, lism, and comparativism are thus core concepts that anthropologists use to from literature and art to science and mathematics. Indeed, literature, art, build a more complex understanding of human biology and culture. science, and mathematics are each a distinct area of study that leads us to understand human beings in a unique way. Taken together, they give us a DEFINING CULTURE greater understanding of the whole. So what is culture, anthropologically speaking? Among anthropologists, cul­ Anthropology, then, continues to be heavily influenced by the sciences ture has a different meaning from the way that "culture" is used in everyday (biology, physics, chemistry) as well as the humanities (history, literature, English. When we think of culture, what comes immediately to mind might music). For example, while biological and archaeological anthropology can include various traditions, customs, beliefs, ceremonies, foods, or the kinds heavily depend on the scientific method, linguistic and cultural anthropol­ of clothes people wear. ogy can heavily depend on the interpretive method (which is also common This idea of culture comes closest to one of the first culture definitions in fields like historical and literary studies). There are thus anthropolo­ used by anthropologists. It was written in 1871 by an early British anthro­ gists who consider themselves scientists and anthropologists who consider pologist named Edward Burnett Tylor. Tylor wrote, "Culture... taken in its themselves artisans, or both. But regardless of our individual methodologies wide ethnographic sense is that complex whole which includes knowledge, or interests, most anthropologists realize that, ultimately, we are part of a belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired much larger disciplinary project. Anthropology is indeed much broader by man as a member of society."3 For Tylor, the differences between human than the sciences or humanities taken by themselves. societies could be identified by their differences in customs, morals, or beliefs. 42 CHAPTER 2 ANTHROPOLOGY AND CULTURE 43 Although he developed his definition of culture to elaborate the stages of so­ a group of things. It is a complex system of meaning created and maintained cial evolution (he used culture synonymously with civilization, for example), by people. And the same can be said for all systems or networks of interacting Tylor's definition helped to hint early on that behavior, or knowledge, or cus­ people who inscribe meaning on experience. toms, or habits were primarily learned rather than inscribed in our biology. Let me put this a little more SUCcinctly by returning to the culture defini­ With Boas and modern anthropology, Tylor's definition of culture took tion that I offered earlier. In an anthropological sense, culture is a shared and on new meaning outside the framework of social evolution-a m~f ning close negotiated system of meaning informed by knowledge that people learn and to the idea of culture most often used in English today. This definition was put into practice by interpreting experience and generating behavior. At this one that anthropologists employed for many years; it was common in in­ point, 1'd like to focus on different parts of this definition to elaborate just troductory textbooks until the 1950s and 1960s and in some continues even what I mean here. Let's start with a shared and negotiated system of meaning. today. And for good reason. To be sure, we can recognize differences between ancient Greeks (who often buried their dead) and ancient Parsees (a people Culture as a Shared and Negotiated System of Meaning of southeast Asia who once exposed their dead to the elements), differences To begin with, a system refers to a group of interacting or interrelated parts between the Bedouin (a Middle Eastern people whose men may have multiple that operate in relation to one another. In reference to culture, those parts wives) and the Pahari (a people in northwest Nepal whose women may have are (of course) people. For these human parts to interrelate as a meaningful multiple husbands) , differences between Southern Baptists (who live mostly system, however, there must be a broad base of shared (but not necessarily in the southern United States and often encourage witnessing to the "un­ equally agreed-on) meanings. At any point where people can communicate saved") and Primitive Baptists (who also live mostly in the southern United and negotiate these shared meanings, culture is at work. When we speak of States but often discourage witnessing to the unsaved), and so forth. We can American culture, for instance, we reference a system of interacting people say that these observable differences rest in differences in culture. who share, within certain limits, a common experience. But that experience, Tylor's definition of culture, however, emphasizes things and expressions. of course, can be widely diverse. In the context of American society (read, This is to say that, whether we are identifying different burial customs, marriage "system"), diverse people thus interact with each other on many different practices, or beliefs, we are identifying the by-products or artifacts of culture, levels and in many different contexts, where they communicate and negotiate not culture itself. And this is where things get a little more complicated. to varying degrees an American experience and in tum engender American An old Buddhist saying reminds us, "The finger that points at the moon is culture. We can say the same for the workings of Japanese culture, New York not the moon." That saying is relevant here. It means that we should not be City culture, or even "university culture." Conversely, we can say that the in­ fooled into thinking that the messenger is the message or that the means that terrelated parts-the people-are not the culture. The interrelated parts are, point us to an end are the end itself. In the same way, we should not be fooled in broad terms, human societies, which, as a necessary condition for culture, into thinking that the by-products or artifacts of culture are culture itself. give rise to various "systems of meaning." Instead, they point us to deeper human meanings. For many anthropologists, This is not to say, however, that these various systems of meaning that then, culture is the meaning behind that which humans produce. Morals, we call "culture" are necessarily circumscribed by clear boundaries, like beliefs, customs, or laws are things; the significance that humans give these geographical or political borders. Indeed, they overlap, intersect with, and things is meaning. For example, the American flag is not American culture, compete with one another. Thus, culture is better understood as a process. but its negotiated meanings are-that is, the American flag can be said to The parts that make up the system-people-are not puppets or stick figures; point us to a deeper national conversation about what it means to be Ameri­ people like you and me constantly negotiate meaning with ourselves and can. Of course, this is something over which people discuss, debate, and others. The ever-changing culture of the Internet is a good example (and an argue. And this is the point: American culture is not static; it is not a thing or equally good analogy for culture). 44 CHAPTER 2 ANTHROPOLOGY AND CULTURE 45 anthropological sense, Our collective (and negotiated, debated, and contested) system of meaning-in a word, our culture. Just as we can talk about something as familiar as family culture, we can also talk about culture that is less familiar. Take the peculiar and exotic cul­ ture of stock car racing. Yes, the culture of stock car racing. Here's one that I just do not understand. Although I have had folks explain it to me more than once, I have never fully understood why people would watch cars go around and around and around a track. You get my point-it makes little sense to me, but it is culture nonetheless: stock car racing has a system of shared and negotiated meanings. I'm not quite sure what it is, but it exists. I used to say the same thing, incidentally, about demolition derbies. I could never understand why people would want to watch drivers destroy their cars­ that is, until I went to a demolition derby (which included a combine demolition derby) in the rural Midwest. I could not keep my eyes off of it. There was just something about watching these old cars-and then these old combines-:-com­ pletely destroy one another. Once again, I'm not exactly sure what the shared Although a symbol like the American flag (seen here in a Hispanic nightclub in meanings are, but they exist, and so does the culture of demolition derbies. Evansville, Indiana) represents the United States, it in no way captures the full range of diversity within American culture. Indeed, this symbol means different things for different people. Photo by Danny Gawlowski. So, just as we can talk about American or Japanese culture or university culture or Internet culture, we can also talk about something as particular as family culture. Although clear cultural differences between families emerge between those living in, say, Brazil and Korea, different families within a society also have their own systems of meaning that make them unique and different from one another. In my own family, for example, telling stories was always an important part of dinnertime conversation, which often lasted for hours. My parents were farmers as children, and because this kind of dinnertime conversation was so important in their childhood, they carried the tradition with them when they left the farm. Telling stories is, of course, not unusual, but the particular stories that were told related to a particular experience that we shared, a system of meaning that we constructed and reconstructed each time we had dinner (especially when we argued about the details or meaning of a story). Today, when we gather, in many ways these stories make us who we are; they are our collective memory or, in an A combine demolition derby in the rural Midwest. Photo by author. 46 CHAPTER 2 ANTHROPOLOGY AND CULTURE 47 All of this is to say that culture-as a shared and negotiated system of Yes, here we have culture-a system of meaning informed by shared meaning-permeates every aspect of our lives. Whether we are talking about knowledge that we use whenever we are on the phone. We use this knowl­ families, American flags, universities, or cars (driven fast or destroyed), each edge, of course, without even thinking about it. Indeed, we are deeply cultural involves a system of meaning. The goal in the anthropological study of culture beings. In our minds, cultural knowledge is both unconscious and conscious. is to uncover the shared and negotiated systems of meaning behind some­ On the one ~and, much of the knowledge we have and use is implicit and thing like a demolition derby. But as I have already suggested, anthr'~pologists unspoken; people are usually unaware of this knowledge and do not commu­ also try to understand that such a system of meaning exists in conjwlCtion nicate it verbally. The rules of language are perfect examples. When we use with other systems of meaning. Indeed, as humans we enter and exit through hello to answer the phone, we don't think about where hello comes from or a multitude of these systems each day, often without even thinking about it. what it means; we take it completely for granted. On the other hand, much of While we can talk about family, stock car racing, or demolition derby culture, our cultural knowledge also exists explicitly on a conscious level: it is shared these systems exist within a larger American culture, which, in turn, exists knowledge that people are usually aware of and can talk about. Cultural within a larger world culture. '. ,., traditions or rules are perfect examples. When we go to a formal dinner, for instance, we consciously know and talk about the fact that it is inappropriate Culture as Informed by Knowledge to show up in shorts and a T-shirt. ("You're not going to wear that, are you?" Each of these systems is informed by knowledge. In a general sense, knowl­ my wife would ask.) edge is the process of learning and discovery; knowledge is understanding Of course, conscious and unconscious knowledge work together; they gained through experience; knowledge is grasping something in the mind represent opposite ends of the same continuum. That is, that which we take with certainty. But in a particular sense (once again, in the context of my cul­ for granted can and may move into the arena of conscious knowledge and ture definition discussed here), knowledge exists in the minds of any people vice versa. At one time people were very much aware of the strangeness who share and negotiate culture. In our families, for instance, we share, com­ of the new telephone word hello and talked to one another about its use. municate, and negotiate knowledge about "being" parents, "being" children, But over time, it entered into the realm of unconscious knowledge. Today, or "being" siblings. It's in our minds. We use this knowledge to interpret each people use hello on the phone and in face-to-face interaction as though it family experience and to generate acceptable behavior within this context. has always existed. Of course, we use this knowledge in conjunction with a larger and broader range of sophisticated knowledge to interact in a variety of other meaningful Culture as Learned. systems besides the cultures of our families. Understanding that systems of meaning are informed by knowledge, we When speaking a particular language, to present another example, we use must also understand that this knowledge is primarily learned. To learn a complicated knowledge to generate and interpret sounds-to write and something literally means to acquire knowledge. In reference to culture, interpret the symbols that we call letters, words, sentences, and paragraphs. the process of learning necessarily implies that the vast majority of cultural We use this same range of knowledge to place words together in a prescribed knowledge is not inherited or inscribed in our biology. This is important-we grammar and syntax and to create and re-create new sounds, words, and ex­ are not born with culture. We learn it. Although all humans have the biologi­ pressions. The word hello, for instance, was apparently created along with the cal capacity for language, for example, the many different languages we all telephone. Alexander Graham Bell proposed that people use Ahoy! to answer speak are learned through experience, study, practice, and trial and error. the phone, but Thomas Edison's choice of hello caught on. Today, we use the This is the stuff of learning, and it is something that all culture has in com­ word not only to answer the telephone but also to greet someone face to face mon. So while all people may not share the same language, we all share the in everyday interaction. 4 language-learning process. '­ 48 CHAPTER 2 ANTHROPOLOGY AND CULTURE 49 Even our common human biology is affected by cultural knowledge that we impose on our biology. In America, we tend to marry within so-called racial groups, thus reproducing certain observable characteristics, like skin color. We also learn to see ourselves as part of a racial group with associated behaviors, we learn to recognize and reproduce the boundaries between these racial groups, and we learn perceptions that define our interpreta~ion of our own and other racial groups' behavior. Another powerful example of how we learn to impose cultural knowledge on biology is eating. All humans face the biological need to nourish their · bodies with food. But when to eat (such as after sundown during Ramadan) or how we eat (such as the custom of talking during dinner in much of the United States or remaining silent during a meal, which is the c.:uStom in some Native American communities) or what we eat (whether it is curdled milk [cheese1or insects) is each intimately tied to what we learn through a limited range of experience. Even the idea that a particular food or drink tastes good or bad is acquired: although tasting involves a biological reaction, our minds Encu/turation is an incredibly powerful process. Photo by Danny Gawlowski. learn to cast that biological reaction in a certain way, associating pleasant or unpleasant sensations with certain foods or drinks. In the same way that we learn to mold basic biological needs, we also learn lives without them. When learning what's cool and what's not, we are being to forge our vision of the world around us. Morality, or that which we con­ enculturated. When we learn the grammar, syntax, and meanings of a new sider to be right and wrong, is an example. We learn that burying our dead to language, we are being enculturated. Indeed, you are being enculturated as I dispose of them is right and correct, or we learn, as was the custom in some impart to you the language of anthropology. ancient cultures, that eating our dead to reintegrate them into our own living bodies is the right and proper thing to do. We learn that it is morally right to Culture as Practice have one spouse, or we learn, as is also the custom in some groups, that it is In order to serve the workings of "culture"-that is, as a shared and negoti­ right and responsible to take your spouse's unmarried Siblings as spouses. We ated system of meaning-people must put this learned knowledge into prac­ learn that it is morally wrong to kill another human being, or we learn that it tice. We put this knowledge into practice by interpreting our own and others' is acceptable to kill another human being during war. experience in everyday social interaction, which in turn we use to shape our All of this learning-whatever its form-must take place within a system actions (i.e., generate behavior). Still a tall order? Let's begin with the experi­ of meaning. Because we learn from others, learning is an active social pro­ ence part of this equation. cess that people put into practice all the time. Anthropologists often call this Every human life is composed of experience; indeed, constant encounters process of learning culture enculturation. Enculturation often refers to the with the world around us carry us from birth to death. These encounters with passing of cultural knowledge to children, but enculturation is a constant and the natural and cultural environment are what we call experiences. These ongoing process; indeed, it goes on throughout our lives. Very recently, both experiences are not completely raw encounters-they don't happen in a children and adults have learned how to use computers, for example; our vacuum. From the time we are born, all new experiences are viewed through society now takes them so much for granted that we can barely imagine our the lens of previous experiences. And those previous experiences help to de­ " 50 CHAPTER 2 ANTHROPOLOGY AND CULTURE 51 in a much larger system of meaning that transpires in everyday social interac­ rAID.N·IIl·III.IV il7l ;J.!1~I·'H·I'I" tion, which, of course, occurs on a number oflevels.6 Furthermore, in the context of this culture definition, "interpreting ex­ YouTube.. of course, is a repository of experience where people perience" refers to both the way we interpret the experience of self within a the world over share and negotiate meaning on a daily basis. The particular culture and how we encounter and experience others. When, for ever-evolving culture of YouTube is one of the topics of study example, we decide that eating insects is gross, that marrying more than one for an anthropologist whom Wired mafilazine has called ' "the spouse is wrong, or that demolition derbies are sinful, we are viewing these explainer": Michael Wesch (Kansas State University), who has cultural practices through the lens of our experiences, through our own en­ several well-known arid award-winning YouTube videos himself. culturation into particular groups. And this is exactly how culture works: we Check out his webpage at www~michaeliNesch.com. learn and share knowledge that we use to interpret our own experiences as well as the experiences of others. (I 'll return to this issue a little later.).":I:£OI(.".·].llfO Now, on to the behavior part. In the context of my culture definition, be­ havior means to act or conduct oneself in a specified way. Of course, knowl­ edge shapes those actions, but beyond this, our systems of meaning become termine how the new experience will be shaped, interpreted, and understood. s enacted, embodied, and practiced through behavior, which we in turn negoti­ When, for example, I went to my first demolition derby, I approached it with ate with others in the context of society. When we pick up the phone and say a set of prejudices and assumptions. I had encountered and experienced it hello, we are putting a particular system of meaning into action- that is, we only on television, and watching it from that distance it seemed to me ir­ are acting out knowledge that exists in our minds. When someone dies and responsible and careless. Understand that I came from a Southern Baptist we follow a prescribed way of disposing of the body, we (the living, that is) "waste-not, want-not" background in which destroying things for the sake are enacting systems of meaning-extending that which is in our minds into of having fun was beyond wasteful-it was sinful. Although I have not con­ the actions of our very bodies, over and over again, shaping and reshaping the sidered myself a Baptist since I was a teenager, the experience of having been process from generation to generation. reared as such shaped my encounter with the demolition derby, regardless of I am, of course, using behavior in a much wider sense than a simple reac­ whether I liked it. But my one experience of witnessing demolition firsthand tion to a stimulus. When talking about the anthropological concept of cul­ changed my perception from judgment to curiosity. That experience forced ture, behavior implies a far broader range of actions and practices. Indeed, me to rethink how I viewed the derby. Now when I encounter a demolition behavior is what makes experience real; it forges culture into the diversity of derby, I see it in a new way. I cannot say I completely understand it, but I can human activities found in the world. appreciate it differently. Because all human behavior exists within a larger system of meaning, a This is a simplified example, but I mention it here to point out that so particular human action carries no meaning in and of itself. Behavior always much of our knowledge about the world around us is derived from our ex­ arises in a specific contqt. Anthropologists James P. Spradley and David perience. We then use that knowledge (learned either consciously or uncon­ McCurdy put it this way: "Culture is... the system of knowledge by which sciously) to interpret every successive experience. What's more, these new people design their own actions and interpret the behaviors of others. It tells experiences are framed not only by our own previous experiences but also an American that eating with one's mouth closed is proper, while an Indian, by the larger experience (or, simply put, history) of the particular groups in from south Asia, knows that to be polite one must chew with one's mouth which we interact. Think about it. In this vast system of meaning we share, open. There is nothing preordained about cultural categories; they are ar­ our personal experiences intermingle with the personal experiences of others bitrary. The same act can have different meanings in various cultures. For 52 CHAPTER 2 ANTHROPOLOGY AND CULTURE 53 example, when adolescent Hindu boys walk holding hands, it signifies friend­ stereotype others (think of all those movies about "Indians") to the way we ship, while to Americans the same act may suggest homosexuality."? admire and emulate the rich and famous (think of all those talk shows)-over Reading Spradley and McCurdy's words, other examples come to mind. and over again, we integrate these expressions into our negotiated systems of When we cross our fingers and hold them next to our head in the United meaning. 9 Indeed, the artifacts of American culture-as in any culture-are States, we are often expressing hope. Yet the same action in parts of highland not just things. The movie and television industry is just one example. All of New Guinea can imply something altogether different: it is an ipsult having us are born and enculturated into previously existing composites of traits like sexual connotations. s For many Americans, when we look straight into the aesthetics, values, beliefs, traditions, and customs that, in turn, compel us to eyes of someone while we are talking to them, it means that we are listening; act, think, and behave in specific prescribed ways. In a word, these compos­ it is the polite thing to do. To look away while you are talking might suggest ites of traits carry power: the far-reaching process of influence (that can be you are trying to hide something. But in some Native American communi­ expressed directly or indirectly, implicitly or explicitly), which mediates how ties, looking straight into the eyes of someone while talking to them would be and what we learn, the knowledge we use to interpret experience and generate considered rude. behavior, and even how we interact with one another. Just how we integrate These brief examples illustrate how actions and practices can have dif­ these composites of traits into our individual lives and negotiate individual ferent connotations in different social contexts and in different systems of meanings with larger, complex cultural systems is a problem in which many meaning. It is not the action itself that has meaning; it is the context within anthropologists have great interest. lO which that action occurs. This is what is meant by arbitrary. And, to reiter­ ate the point one last time, human behavior does not carry meaning in and of itself. Any particular human action exists within larger systems of meaning, and we call those systems of meaning "culture." While the examples that I have used are individual and eclectic, behavior in the cultural sense can also imply composites of traits or patterns that are re­ peated throughout a particular society or culture, traits like aesthetics, values, beliefs, traditions, and customs-the "things" of culture that Tylor originally identified as culture itself. And here we come full circle-but we arrive at a different place from the point that initiated my discussion of culture. While Tylor's "things" are cultural artifacts, they are not merely things. Because people ascribe meaning to these things and interpret and reinterpret them across time and space, they can both reflect and shape culture. Think of the movie and television industries, for example, which are very fond of asserting that their media merely (and only) "reflect" American culture. Frankly, this is nonsense. In a world where corporations spend billions on ad campaigns because they know they affect people's buying behavior, the expressions gen­ erated by movies and television also have an enormous impact on the con­ '\ tours of our lives. From the way we remember our pasts (think about all those Human behavior does not carry meaning in and of itself. Any particular human action exists within larger systems of meaning that we call culture. Photo by Danny World War II movies you watched growing up) to the way we define and Gawlowski. 54 CHAPTER 2 ANTHROPOLOGY AND CULTURE 55 ~ Take the study of American culture. To understand such a complex sys­ tem, we would want to take into account the history and development of this Now you should more fully understand what culture, in an anthropologi­ individual nation-state, its economics and politics, as well as its individual cal sense, is. It does include the things that humans produce (as in Tylor's traditions, values, or customs and how they interact with one another as definition), but ultimately these things or artifacts are always couched in a a system, which of course includes the American people themselves. If we shared and negotiated system of meaning informed by knowledge i·that people wanted to understand a smaller part of American culture, like religion, we learn and put into practice by interpreting experience and generating behav­ would want to take into account all the components of religiOUS belief in ior. This definition of culture should make more sense at this point. Are you America-from Catholicism to Protestantism, from Islam to Judaism, from still having a hard time putting your fmger on just what culture is? Are you fundamentalism to atheism. We would also want to take into account how getting that uncomfortable feeling that culture may be messy and unwieldy? religious belief is negotiated in this country, its deeper meanings to American Congratulations! You have arrived. Culture is nebulous rather than absolute, identity, and how it spills over into other realms of American experience, like chaotic rather than harmonious, dynamic rather than idle, ·ubiquitous rather politics. Still further, if we wanted to focus on the culture of one particular than esoteric, complex rather than simple. It is, because people are. religion in the United States or even the culture of a particular church, once again we would want to take into account its every part and how it interacts STUDYING CULTURE with other parts as a system. Given that culture is nebulous, chaotic, dynamiC, ubiquitous, and complex, Here's another example. Since the time I was an undergraduate, I have how do anthropologists actually know what they know about culture? What had an interest in ethnomusicology, an area of study that combines aspects are the conceptual tools they use to go about understanding the culture con­ of both musicology and anthropology to understand the role and meaning cept in all of its complexities? More important, what are the conceptual tools of music cross-culturally. Ethnomusicologists don't just study music, how­ that we need to appreciate the power of culture in human life? ever. As a group, ethnomusicologists try to understand in a holistic way the First and foremost, the concepts of culture, holism, and comparativism all larger human complexities of music, which is a cultural universal-that is, work together. You will recall that holism is a perspective that emphasizes the all human groups practice an expression that they separate from that which whole rather than the parts. When it comes to culture, holism emphasizes un­ is spoken, an expression that we call in English "music." Ethnomusicologists derstanding how the parts of culture work together to create a larger system (and other social scientists who study music) try to understand how musi­ of meaning. The interrelations among a society's history, politics, and eco­ cal expression in each case spills over into other areas of human activity and nomics are examples. We can't really understand one part, history, without meaning. They do; because it always does. understanding the other parts, politics and economics. This is holism, plain Over and over again, music expresses and shapes deeper meanings about, and simple. In the study of culture, to focus only on economics, for example, for example, national, regional, or ethnic identity (think about the national is to miss larger patterns. Anthropologist James L. Peacock puts it this way: anthems of modern nation-states); music expresses and shapes solidarity "To think holistically is to see parts as wholes, to try to grasp the broader (think about the use of "We Shall Overcome" in the civil rights movement); contexts and frameworks within which people behave and experience. One music expresses and shapes political agendas (think about the use of pop such framework is culture. Anthropology is concerned not only with holisti­ songs in U.S. election campaigns); music expresses and shapes protest and cally analyzing the place of humans in society and in nature but also, and rebellion (think about punk music of the 1970s and 1980s); music expresses especially, with the way humans construct cultural frameworks in order to and shapes religious belief (think about the fact that people use music in render their lives meaningful."ll almost every religious tradition); music expresses and shapes the buying and 56 CHAPTER 2 ANTHROPOLOGY AND CULTURE 57 selling of commodities (think about advertising); music expresses and shapes ANTHROPOLOGY HERE AND NOW human emotion (think about the use of music in the movie and television industry); and music even expresses and shapes how we think about ourselves Anthropologists may study the particular to gain insight into (think of the radio stations you listen to or the music collections you own). larger human issues. Take, for example, the work of cultural an­ In each case, if we focused only on the sound of music itself, we would miss thropologist Celeste Ray (University of the South), who studies its significance and power in other realms of human life and meaning. To Irish holy wells: sacred springs or waterholes associated with understand music, then, we must understand the larger contexts in which cures for particular Illnesses, often dedicated to unofficial Irish music expresses and shapes human activity. saints, many of whom were local holy women. Ray suggests To look for such connections between parts is holism. Yet, as might be ap­ that well-side rituals have something to tell us, not only about parent, holism is an insurmountable goal in many respects; it can seem com­ Irish religioUS praxis, but also about the endurance of local and pletely overwhelming, especially when we consider that almost every human regional beliefs and practices within internationally embraced system is part of another larger system, which is iri turn piirt of a still larger faiths: You can learn more about Ray's research from National system. We could very well take the study of music or American culture to Geographic (Which incluc;les an audio interview with Ray) at the point of infinity. With this in mind, you may very well ask: Can we ever newswatch. natio nalge09 raph ie.eomlta glcel este-ray. grasp the wholeness of culture? Can we ever understand every component of a system as complex as American or world culture? Indeed, when we consider 1101 a:(01 t. '.'1111l1li that understanding all the subtle nuances of a single individual is nearly im­ possible, how can we presume to know as much about an entire group or so­ ciety? Anthropologist James L. Peacock answers: "Holism is an important but This does not mean that anthropologists, or anyone for that matter, can impossible ideal. You cannot see everywhere or think everything. You must never attain.a clear understanding of culture. It is as James Peacock says: select and emphasize. To do this, you must categorize and make distinctions. "[C]ulture is not a physical thing but an attitude, a way of viewing the world. Only in this way can you analyze and understand."12 We can describe indications of a certain cultural pattern- people hurrying or Anthropologists thus approach culture with the philosophy of and struggle loitering as clues to their assumptions about time, for example-but culture for holism but realize that ultimately one must focus on parts, parts that­ itself is an abstraction that we make based on such indications. There is noth­ when compared to other parts-point us in the direction of understanding ing wrong with an abstraction so long as we recognize it for what it is. "13 larger human issues. Hence, anthropologists often study a particular church In this way, holism reminds us that the very concept of culture is an to make inferences about the role of religion in human life, or they study one abstraction; it is not a thing, as I have already established. Yet Peacock kind of music to understand music's role within a particular SOciety, or they implores us to remember that culture, although an abstraction , "can none­ study a small group of women in a rural village to understand larger issues of theless have reality and power in experience."14 This is why anthropologists gender in human life. In each case, an individual study enters into conversa­ often focus on the particular, on small communities, or on a few people­ tion with other anthropological studies that, when taken together, have some­ sites where culture is embodied, enacted, experienced, and in turn negoti­ thing to offer our understandings of religion, music, or gender, respectively. ated-on an intimate human level. 15 Each of these studies, which focus on the particular, points us in the direc­ Anthropologist Philippe Bourgois, for example, lived and studied with tion of holism, which in turn poin ts us to a deeper understanding of culture. over two dozen crack dealers in East Harlem for five years. By studying the But just like the saying "The finger that points at the moon is not the moon," particular among a very few in a small community, Bourgois was able to point we realize its incompleteness-that we are always in the process of under­ us toward an understanding of the way worldwide economic patterns are standing culture. articulated in the lives of users and dealers in an underground economy, how 58 CHAPTER 2 ANTHROPOLOGY AND CULTURE 59 the use of violence becomes meaningful to success in the illegal drug trade, also has unique qualities (consider the ways people define "good" and "bad" and how dealers respond to and shape larger drug markets. When reading food). Thus, in order to understand culture both particularly and generally, Bourgois's work, we realize that the users and dealers he describes are a very we must try to understand culture in all its complexities. We struggle to see small component of a much larger culture of illegal drug use and trade. Yet parts in larger cultural contexts (holism), and we push for understanding we also realize that Bourgois's study does point us in the direction of under­ the comprehensive role of culture in people's lives without losing sight of its standing the larger culture of illegal drug use and trade. 16 Each anthropological particular expression in human experience (ethnology). study is like this. Although focusing on one particular part, it points us to With that said, however, I am reminded of my earlier discussion about the broader discussions. role and limits of experience in the definition of culture. Holism and ethnol­ This is where comparativism comes in. In order for the part to have rel­ ogy are difficult to recognize in the first place because people characteristi­ evance in a broader conversation about culture, we must compare. Recall cally generalize and compare on the basis of their own experience. They often that in the general study of anthropology, comparativism means to search see the parts and connections they want to see. As the German philosopher for similarities and differences between and among human beings in all their Arthur Schopenhauer once said, "Every man takes the limits of his own field biological and cultural complexities. In the study of culture, this approach of vision for the limits of the world." Indeed, many people the world over concentrates on comparing varied cultural descriptions from around the believe their own religion to be the right religion, or they say that the music world to make generalizations about human beings and the role of culture of other people all sounds alike, or they think that all people are essentially in human life. In the study of culture, this comparative perspective is called the same or, at the other extreme, that nobody is like them. Departing down ethnology (which is sometimes used synonymously with cultural anthro­ the road of culture requires that we look at two more concepts that, when pology). Thus, while anthropologists may study an individual culture-like fully understood and properly balanced, make holism and ethnology possible: families in Japanese society or Protestant churches in the southern United ethnocentrism arid cultural relativity. States-their ultimate purpose is to advance a deeper understanding oflarger Let's take an extended look at these two concepts. Ethnocentrism is the cultural issues. These issues might include race and ethnicity; religion; politics tendency to view the world from the basis of one's own experience. On a very and economics; kinship, marriage, and family; ecology; gender; or the nature fundamental human level, we cannot help but be ethnocentric. It is a fact of of violence, conflict, and peace. These understandings in turn help to address every human life. Our experience is limited, and what exists outside the lim­ such questions as the follOWing: Why do people differ? What can we learn its of that experience is foreign and strange (like, for me, the culture of stock about others and ourselves by studying the wide range of culture? Why do car racing). But more than this, the cultural knowledge, customs, traditions, we find universals in all societies-like religion or music or taboos against values, and ideas with which we are enculturated have enormous power in incest? Why is marriage found everywhere? Why do people create social defining how we will continue to encounter, experience, and understand the hierarchies-between the rich and poor, for example-over and over again? world around us. Often we are completely unconscious that the way we live Exploring these questions through the framework of ethnology means taking and experience the world fashions our ethnocentrism. Indeed, ethnocentrism into account all that we know about culture. is so basic to our being that we may not even realize just how powerful it This means that in the study of culture the particular is always struggling can be. Many Americans, for example, are often unaware of how culturally against the general and vice versa. On the one hand, while we may empha­ specific "notions of beauty" shape their views of themselves and others. And size how culture is different from one group to the next, it is important to those views can have powerful implications: studies have illustrated that these understand that all culture shares similarities (like the common problems notions of beauty can affect things like popularity, employment and hiring presented by the food quest). On the other hand, while we may recognize that decisions, and even student evaluations of their professors. In one interest­ all culture has common elements, it is important to recognize that culture ing study, researchers found that "attractive professors consistently outscore  60 CHAPTER 2 ANTHROPOLOGY AND CULTURE 61 back from our own ideas about who and what dogs are. We are not interested in why other people may not view dogs in the same way, and so we jump to conclusions, as did many social evolutionists: anyone who would eat dogs must be, in our minds, savage. But let's look more deeply into what eating dogs might mean to others. Cheyenne-Arapaho-a Native American group living in western Okla­ homa-are known to eat dogs sometimes. Paradoxically, many Cheyenne­ Arapaho view their dogs like other Americans, as little people in furry suits. Nevertheless, once a year, some Cheyenne-Arapaho choose to ritually, as a group, eat dogs. Cheyenne-Arapaho today tell an old story about a time when they were starving to death, and their dogs came forward and told the people that they would give their lives for food so that the Cheyenne-Arapaho might live. To­ day, each year, at their annual sun dances, the Cheyenne-Arapaho thus ritu­ ally eat a dog to remind them of this event-that their dogs paid the ultimate price. Dogs, then, were and are much more than little people in furry suits. Culturallv specific notions of beauty shape how we perceive and enact personal beauty. Photo bV Dannv Gawlowski. Seen in this light, it appears to be a very different thing when we step outside of our ethnocentrism, doesn't it?18 their less comely colleagues by a significant margin on student evaluations Unchecked ethnocentrism can get in the way of understanding other of teaching."1 7 Of course, the physical qualities that make some professors people and other cultural practices. Indeed, when ethnocentrism is taken "attractive" and others "less comely" are neither universal nor uniform; our to the extremes of overt prejudice, racism, bigotry, or hatred-as it so often attributions of attractiveness are rooted in ethnocentrism, shaped by very is-we miss not only the deeper intricacies of culture but also the common­ powerful cultural, often unconscious, ideas about what constitutes beauty. ality of human experience. And, as a result, we ourselves become more set Realizing the power of ethnocentrism is the first step toward understand­ apart and less human. ing the bias that we carry in our studies of culture. Noone can be completely How do we overcome our own ethnocentrism, an ethnocentrism that is bias free. But everyone can, first, recognize that they are ethnocentric and, so intrinsic to the human experience? When we consider the reasons some second, seek ways to understand culture outside their own view of the world. Cheyenne-Arapaho might eat dogs from their perspective, we are using the Put another way, we must shift ethnocentrism from the unconscious to the conceptual tool of cultural relativity. Cultural relatiVity is the second part of conscious realm of knowledge. the conceptual foundation that allows us to study culture through the frame­ Unchecked, ethnocentrism can prevent us from understanding the larger works of holism and ethnology. questions of culture. Unconscious ethnocentrism can inform our conscious Cultural relativity, you will recall from my discussion of Boas, is the idea judgments of other peoples and other cultural practices. Ethnocentrism often that each society or culture must be understood on its own terms. It does tells us that our view of the world is right and that other ways of looking at not mean that we necessarily agree with every cultural practice that we come the world are wrong or weird. When, for example, we hear of other people across; it means that if we really want to understand how culture works, we who eat, say, dogs as food, we cringe. For many of us, dogs are little people must look at culture from the viewpOints of those who create, maintain, and in furry suits, and to eat one is tantamount to cannibalism. We cannot stand experience it, not from our own.  62 CHAPTER 2 ANTHROPOLOGY AND CULTURE 63 Take, for example, Bourgois's work with inner-city drug dealers. Bour­ we do with the ongoing human practices of violence, slavery, genocide, or gois did not condone the selling of drugs or the brute violence on which the the exploitation of others? Take, for example, violence against women. Rape, culture of dealing illegal drugs often rests. Instead, Bourgois approached the sexual assault, harassment, or the international trafficking of women sold into drug dealers through the framework of cultural relativity rather than judg­ prostitution rings are hard facts of both local and international culture.21 To ment so that he could understand how the culture of selling crack really simply sit back and say, "Well, that's the culture and we really shouldn't judge works. After five years of living and studying on the street, BOl,lrgois began or seek to change it," is to take cultural relativity to an extreme. to understand drug dealers as people struggling to survive on the margins of Let's take another difficult example: genocide, the extermination of one American society. He wrote that the drug dealers had "not passively accepted group of people by another. Genocide is a dark underside of many, many their structural victimization. On the contrary, by embroiling themselves in societies around the world. We may be most familiar with Nazi Germany, the underground economy and proudly embracing street culture, they are but the practice is not by any means unusual human behavior, past or pres­ seeking an alternative to their social marginalization."19 ent; unfortunately,. it has cropped up throughout human history and is still While Bourgois came to these understandings through cUltural relativity relatively common among human beings. without succumbing to ethnocentrism, he also directly witnessed overt acts In the twentieth century alone, which includes well-known genocides of violence. Understanding this "culture of terror" was critical to under­ such as Nazi Germany (six million), Stalin's Soviet Union (ten million) , and standing how this component of street culture worked; it also reinforced Khmer Rouge Cambodia (two and a half million), estimates of those who Bourgois's conviction that the illegal drug trade and its accompanying perished as a result of genocide range as high as twenty-eight million. But attributes of violence were deeply detrimental to American society. While consider the figures of genocides from just 1950 to 2000. From 1955 to 1972, the drug dealers had found ways to survive in the inner City, they also had the Sudanese army eradicated five hundred thousand southern Sudanese "become the actual agents administering their own destruction and their people. In 1971, in Bangladesh, the East Pakistan army murdered about three community's suffering. "20 million people. In 1972, in Burundi, Tutsis killed around two hundred thou­ sand Hutus, and in Rwanda, in the course of a few months in 1994 alone, m~'I;';{·J:;""·ICf4;IM;l.·'\\I"~['JIiII Hutus exterminated well over five hundred thousand Tutsis. Think about that last example: five hundred thousand people murdered in the course of a few months. In 1994, five hundred thousand people would have comprised You can learn more abQut Philippe Bourgois's wor~-including a small to midsize U.S. city, like Nashville. Imagine that, over the course of a his latest studies of homelessness and drug addiction-at philippe bourgois.net. few months, the people living in Nashville were gone. Vanished. Wiped off the face of the earth. While, in all, the Tutsis and Hutus would, by the end of the century, account for the deaths of well over a million people, this pecu­ ":1:[ot: lll.. liar human phenomenon has spared no particular region of the world. From North and South America to Eurasia to Africa, genocide is a phenomenon Bourgois's intimate five-year study would not have been possible without that all humans share in their collective past. 22 the use of cultural relativity. Yet, like ethnocentrism, cultural relativity can While anthropologists study this phenomenon to gain better under­ also be taken to extremes. Some might be tempted to just say we can make no standings of the culture of violence, it does not mean that we can sit back judgments about others or their cultural practices. Hypothetically, it would and say, "Well, it's their culture, and we shouldn't judge or seek to change be nice if we didn 't have to make judgments about other people. Yet what do it." In the study of genocide and its relation to the culture of violence, we do with the knowledge of actual human behavior in our world? What do the real questions become these: How do we address this kind of human 64 CHAPTER 2 ANTHROPOLOGY AND CULTURE 65 violence on a worldwide level? Is it natural or cultural? If it is socially and culturally constructed, how can we work to change people's attitudes about each other? While recognizing the complexities of human differences, how can we build bridges of understanding between people? These kinds of questions are becoming all the more important as we move toward the global village. People are being forced to answer for actions like genocide in forums such as the World Court at The Hague. Here, different groups of people come together and decide that, for example, slavery should not be tolerated regardless of its role in a particular society or culture. The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights declares in its fourth article that "[nlo one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms."23 Yet slavery still exists 'in our world, from forced labor in China to the ongoing slave trade in Sudan. Of course, people have always negotiated their own moralities with other people. But, unlike the past, groups today are having to negotiate what they might consider natural and right (such as enslaving others) with those who consider it wrong on an international scale. As anthropologist Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban writes, "The exchange of ideas across cultures is already fos­ The uncritical acceptance of cultural relativity may actually hinder our common tering a growing acceptance of the universal nature of some human rights, efforts to address complex, multifaceted global problems. Indeed, all the world's regardless of cultural differences. "24 citizens increasingly find themselves having to evaluate their cultural practices Ethnocentrism and cultural relativity, then, can be incredibly complicated in light of our rapidly changing and ever more integrated world. Nelson Mandela (center), for example, has argued that addressing Africa 's AIDS epidemic is more to balance, both in the study of culture and in the negotiation of culture on than just educating the public; people must also change conventional cultural a worldwide level. Coming to understand the complexities of ethnocentrism practices that augment the spread of this infectious disease. Photo b y author. and cultural relativity is a vital and ongoing process, one that is informing and shaping not only the study of culture but also the cultural knowledge of between nation-states on the world stage. Not until we understand culture in human survival itself. its broader framework can we approach complex human problems and reach for their complex solutions. Understanding the power of culture can thus of­ SUMMING UP: LESSONS FROM DEFINING AND STUDYING CULTURE fer us a powerful tool for understanding and creating change in our own lives So what do we do with our understanding of culture? Culture's role in human and in our own communities. life is enormous. Yet popular ideas about culture are often limited to tradi­ With this said, let's briefly review. You'll recall that culture is a shared and tions, customs, or habits. Although these "things" are indeed part of culture, negotiated system of meaning informed by knowledge that people learn and they are only a small part of a larger equation that can lead us to understand­ put into practice by interpreting experience and generating behavior. To put ing human beings in all their complexities. And because human beings are this another way, remember the following: complicated, so, too, is culture. Living in today's complex world thus means that we are increasingly called on to understand culture in much more com­ Culture is a system of meaning (the system is made up of parts-that is, plicated ways-from our daily interactions with others to the relationships people).  67 ANTHROPOLOGY AND CULTURE 66 CHAPTER 2 Spradley, ed., in Culture and Cognition: Rules, Maps, and Plans (San Francisco: Culture is shared and negotiated among and between people. Chandler, 1972),6-18, and especially The Ethnographic Interview (New York: Culture consists of knowledge. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1979), in which Spradley states, "[C]ulture... [is the] Culture is learned through enculturation. acquired knowledge that people use to interpret experience and generate social In practice (i.e., in everyday social interaction), culture frames experience behavior" (5). This perspective has precedence with Ward Goodenough's writings­ (and vice versa). see, for example, "Cultural Anthropology and Linguistics," in Report of the Seventh In practice (i.e., in everyday social interaction), culture genera'tes behavior Annual Round Table Meeting on Linguistics and Language Study, ed. P. 1. Garvin (and vice versa). (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Monograph Series on Language and Linguistics, no. 9, 1957), and Culture, Language, and Society (Menlo Park, CA: Benjamin/Cummings, 1981). My departure from the rules of culture and elaboration of experience and practice of culture (especially in the discussion that follows) is informed primarily by Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, trans. R. Nice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977). which I pose here within A model for understanding the the context of an introductory discussion. See also Michael Jackson, ed., Things complexities of culture. As They Are: New Directions in Phenomenological Anthropology (Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 1996), and Victor W. Turner and Edward M. Bruner, The CULTURE Anthropology of Experience (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1986). ethnocentrism cultural relativity 2. For a deeper discussion of these issues, see James 1. Peacock, The Anthropological Lens: Harsh Light, Soft Focus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), Remember that understanding the actual complexities of culture proceeds especially 1-47. through a philosophical lens that balances culture with holism and ethnol­ 3. Edward B. Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. 1 (New York: Harper & Row, 1958 ogy (i.e., comparativism as applied to the study of culture), which, in turn, ). rests on the ever-evolving balancing act between ethnocentrism and cultural relativity. This is where understanding culture in an anthropological sense 4. "You Say Hello, I Say Ahoy," All Things Considered, National Public Radio, resides. Although anthropologists use a philosophical model, they also apply March 19, 1999. a distinct methodology for approaching the study of culture. This methodol­ 5. See Edward M. Bruner, "Experience and Its Expressions," in Turner and Bruner, ogy is called ethnography, and it is the subject of the next chapter. The Anthropology of Experience, 3-30. NOTES 6. Ibid. 1. This culture definition (and my following discussion of culture in the section 7. James P. Spradley and David W. McCurdy, eds., Culture and Conflict: Readings "Defining Culture") is based on several sources. My focus on culture as a in Cultural Anthropology, 8th ed. (New York: HarperCollins, 1994),4-5. negotiated system of meaning is informed by Gregory Bateson, Steps to an Ecology 8. Paul Wohlt, personal communication, 2000. of Mind (San Francisco: Chandler, 1972); James Clifford, The Predicament of Culture (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988); Clifford Geertz, The 9. A plethora of studies have explored how media affects behavior-much of Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973), and Local Knowledge: it conducted by the advertising industry. For dearly written and provocative Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology (New York: Basic Books, 1983); and discussions about the relationships of the movie and television industry to culture, Renato Rosaldo, Culture and Truth: The Remaking of Social Analysis (Boston: see, for example, Sissela Bok, Mayhem: Violence as Public Entertainment (Reading, Beacon Press, 1993). My focus on cultural knowledge is revised from James P.  69 68 CHAPTER 2 ANTHROPOLOGY AND CULTURE 18. Eugene Blackbear Jr., "Ceremonial Aspects of the Sun Dance and Sweat Lodge MA: Addison-Wesley, 1998); Conrad Philip Kottak, Prime-Time Society: An Rituals as They Relate to Contemporary Wellness" (paper presented at "Affects Anthropological Analysis ofTelevision and Culture (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, on Wellness: A Holistic Approach," Indian Health Service, Anadarko, Oklahoma, 1990); and Scott Robert Olson, Hollywood Planet: Global Media and the Competitive Advantage of Narrative Transparency (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, October 27, 1993). 1999). For discussions that take up the effect of the television and movie industry 19. Bourgois, In Search ofRespect, 143. within even larger frameworks of business and economics, see, for example, Thomas Frank, The Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counterculture, and the'R ise of Hip 20. Ibid. Consumerism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997). 21. See United Nations Population Fund, The State of World Population 2000 (New York: United Nations Population Fund), especially chapter 3, "Violence against 10. I am, of course, referring to the complex and far-reaching study of culture and power. Anthropologists have drawn inspiration from a number of different Women and Girls: A Human Rights and Health Priority." theorists, including Max Weber (see, for example, The Theory of Social and 22. Michael N. Dobkowski and Isidor Wallimann, Genocide in Our Time: An Economic Organization [New York: Oxford University Press, 1947,(1925))), Annotated Bibliography with Analytical Introductions (Ann Arbor, MI: Pierian Emile Durkheim (see The Rules of the Sociological Method [New York: Free Press, Press, 1992); Israel W. Charny, ed., Encyclopedia of Genocide, 2 vols. (Santa Barbara, 1938 (1895) 1), Karl Marx (see Capital: A Critique ofPolitical Economy [London: CA: ABC-CLIO, 1999); Isidor Wallimann and Michael N. Dobkowski, eds., Sonnenschein, 1887 (1867-1894)]), Antonio Gramsci (see Selections from the Prison Genocide and the Modern Age: Etiology and Case Studies ofMass Death (Syracuse, Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci [London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1971)), Michel NY: Syracuse University Press, 2000). Foucault (see Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings [New York: 23. United Nations, "Universal Declaration of Human Rights," General Assembly Pantheon Books, 1980)), and Pierre Bourdieu (see Language and SymboliC Power [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991)), among many others. Resolution 217 A (III), December 10, 1948. Anthropologists have thus elaborated power in a diversity of ways, including 24. Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban, "Cultural Relativism and Universal Rights," Chronicle as the physical domination of one person or group over another (via Weber), of Higher Education, BI-B2, June 9,1995. as inscribed in social institutions (via Durkheim), as originating in modes of production (via Marx), as emergent in the rise of hegemony (via Gramsci), as a discursive process in the social construction of reality (via Foucault), or as a deeply symbolic practice (via Bourdieu). 11. Peacock, The Anthropological Lens, 17. 12. Ibid., 19-20. 13. Ibid., 20. 14. Ibid., 23. 15. For a deeper discussion, see Peacock, The Anthropological Lens, llff. 16. See Philippe Bourgois, In Search ofRespect: Selling Crack in EI Barrio (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). 17. Gabriela A. Montell, "Do Good Looks Equal Good Evaluations?" Chronicle of Higher Education, October IS, 2003.